Big City Heat

by David Burnsworth

  “You ain’t gonna like this. I don’t like it.”

  Brack zeroed in on one thought. “Darcy.”

  “Yep.”

  “How’s she connected?”

  “You remember the time she got inside that Chinese brothel in Charleston that was blackmailing all them big-money businessmen?”

  The Chinese hoods had shot her.

  Brack rubbed his chin. “Uh-huh.”

  “She’s at it again,” he said.

  “The question is, why didn’t she tell us?”

  “You think I know women?”

  Taliah and Shelby had abandoned fetch the ball and played tag, a game Brack was surprised Shelby knew how to play. He watched as she chased Shelby around the area, touched his back, and reversed direction. Shelby gave chase, caught up to her, nudged her with his snout, then slid to a stop like a car without anti-lock brakes, his head and chest lowered and his hind end raised. He spun around and ran in the other direction, Taliah fast on his heels, his ears back and tongue hanging out in absolute bliss.

  Their joy gave Brack a moment of peace. Here, in sight of the tall buildings of this grand yet brutal city, these two were having a blast.

  Mutt said, “Would you look at them.”

  “Your daughter has taught my dog a new game.”

  What Brack saw in Mutt’s eyes was what he imagined parental pride was. In Taliah, he had a lot to be proud of. Mutt was smarter than the average bear, but Taliah was off the charts.

  The men didn’t say anything further until Taliah and Shelby, their “kids,” took a break by the water fountain.

  Brack wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I think we need to talk to Darcy.”

  When Brack was young, his family moved to Atlanta to be closer to his mother’s sister. Her daughter, his older cousin, took Brack to Little Five Points. During the mid-to-late eighties, Little Five Points was considered Atlanta’s version of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. Dead Heads commingled with the punk scene. As an eight-year-old boy seeing what he later learned were Clockwork Orange skinheads—teenaged boys dressed up like characters from the movie of the same name—he had nightmares for weeks afterward. Today, with Mutt’s loaded thirty-eight, Brack secretly wanted to spot one of those posers.

  With the gun stuck down the waistband of his khakis, Brack sat in a coffee shop, a large cup of steaming black decaf on the table in front of him. His car was parked at a meter that needed three swipes of a credit card to register the transaction, then charged him twice.

  Darcy walked in and Brack stood, hoping his face didn’t betray the butterflies in his stomach.

  She came over and sat across from him. “How’s it going?”

  “Can I get you a coffee?”

  “Wow,” she said, a smile creeping across her face. “Um, sure. A half-caf soy latte.”

  Brack ordered her drink and brought it to her.

  “Thanks. This must be important if you’re buying.”

  “Actually, and you’ll appreciate this, your name came up when we were digging into Vito’s businesses.”

  Her cup hovered in space, as if she couldn’t decide whether to set it down or take a sip.

  “The funny thing,” he continued, “at least for me, is you were found out by a thirteen-year-old.”

  “Huh?”

  This opportunity to have a little fun was just too good to pass up. “Granted, she is a registered genius.”

  “Taliah found something that links me to Vito?”

  “Yep. She is one smart cookie.”

  Her cup made it back to the saucer. “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “The way it was explained to me—and we both know that requires breaking it down to a fifth-grade level—is a link exists to some outstanding parking tickets that were issued near several of Vito’s businesses. If she can find your car, how long do you think it will take before someone else does? The kid is sharp, but it really proves there’s a traceable trail.”

  Darcy looked out the window of the shop. “One that leads to me.”

  Brack nodded and finished off his coffee. “You want something to eat? I’m going to get a cookie.”

  “No thanks.”

  Darcy sat at the table and Brack sensed a feeling of vulnerability over her. It was obvious to him, if to no one else, that what he’d said troubled her.

  “Outstanding parking tickets,” she repeated.

  “Funny how those things catch up with you.”

  “I totally forgot about them.” She tapped a finger on the table. “But this doesn’t make sense. My car isn’t registered to me anyway.”

  Brack opened his mouth to toss her another smart remark and stopped. What she said really didn’t make sense. He asked, “Who’s it registered to?”

  “A fake business I created.”

  “Hold on a minute.” Brack took out his phone and called Mutt.

  He answered, “Yo.”

  “Mutt, I’m with Darcy. We need to speak with Taliah, find out exactly how she found the link to Darcy.”

  “She’s at her mother’s,” he said. “I just dropped her off.”

  “Does she have a cell?”

  “Who, her mother?”

  “No, Taliah.”

  A pause told him Mutt didn’t want his daughter any more involved than she already was.

  Brack said, “Darcy’s car isn’t registered to her. How Taliah found her name is important.”

  “Look, Opie. You know I’ll go all the way to the grave wit you. But Taliah is different.”

  That wasn’t what Brack wanted to hear. What he wanted to hear was cooperation. Instead he got another roadblock. Only this time it was from Mutt. Having learned the hard way, Brack actually took time to think before he spoke. While he wanted to say anything but, he said, “Okay. You’re right. We’ll find it another way.”

  “Thanks for understanding.”

  “Well,” Brack said to him, “we do tend to collect collateral damage.”

  Darcy said, “That’s an understatement.”

  They exited the coffee shop, the sun bright and hot.

  Brack said, “Why didn’t you tell me you were already on Vito?”

  “All I had on him so far was background and a list of his businesses.” She frowned. “It wasn’t anything. I mean, I was simply doing my job. He’s a big player and I smelled dirt.”

  “What do you think now?”

  Darcy checked her phone for messages. “I think something doesn’t add up.”

  “There’s a lot about this that doesn’t add up,” Brack said.

  They walked to her car.

  He asked, “What company did you register this under?”

  “A fake one,” she said. “I already told you that.”

  “Yeah, but what did you call it?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Under the circumstances,” he said, “it couldn’t hurt.”

  “Well, I’d rather not say.”

  That wasn’t like her. “I don’t think we can find out—and protect you—any other way.”

  She got in her car and started it.

  Brack opened the passenger door and ducked in, waiting.

  After a few seconds of listening to the four-cylinder engine idle, the AC laboring to work up to its role, she said, “PC Industries.”

  He got in the car and closed the door. “PC Industries? Computers? How’d you come up with that?”

  “The question is, how did Taliah link it to me?” She put the car into drive, pulled away from the curb, and headed down the street. Four stoplights later, she glided into a parking garage under a very tall building.

  “This must be the office,” Brack said.

  “A little different from Charleston,” she said.

  Brack wasn’t sure i
f she considered the difference a good thing or not.

  She parked in a spot identified as for Darcy Wells, Sr. Corresp. They took the elevator up to the thirtieth floor and he realized that this place, unlike the Palmetto Pulse, his aunt’s local news conglomerate in Charleston, probably didn’t allow dogs. And then he realized how much he missed Shelby.

  The elevator doors opened to plush carpeting, bright lights, and colorful signage denoting Darcy’s current employer. A large number of people bustled around and held phones to their ears. While Darcy would always be a star in his book, here she had to fight with many eager young go-getters to distinguish herself.

  With cube walls out of vogue, her space consisted of a desk and a few chairs set in the middle of a bull pen of other desks, chairs, and employees. To someone who spent his afternoons staring at the Atlantic lapping the shore of his island, the sound of this commotion was deafening. As soon as Regan came home, Brack was getting out of this town.

  Darcy sat in her swivel chair and logged onto the system, while he took a seat in front of her desk and unwillingly absorbed the energy of the place.

  A tall, skinny kid about twenty stopped beside her desk. “Staff meeting in five. Nancy says to try and grace us with your presence, pretty please.” His tie sported a purple argyle design that contrasted with his white shirt, his hair already thinning at the corners of his forehead.

  Darcy looked at him. “Tell Nancy I’ll think about it.”

  “She’s not going to like that.” He swished to the next desk.

  “I don’t think he liked your answer,” Brack said.

  She stood. “Yeah, well, since I’ve blown off the last few meetings, I probably need to make an appearance.”

  Slouching in the seat as if ready to take a nap, Brack said, “I suppose you don’t need backup.”

  “You’re right. You better stay here.”

  Twenty minutes later, he was startled out of a deep slumber by the slamming of a desk drawer.

  “Those idiots think we’re full of smoke,” Darcy said, “That I’m full of smoke.”

  Shaking off the sleep and remnants of a dream about his beach home, Brack asked, “Trouble in paradise?”

  “Every story I’ve written has paid off. Every news segment I’ve filmed has had off-the-charts viewer feedback. Yet I’m still the new girl from the small town.”

  “They’re wannabe suits,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Don’t worry about them.”

  “Yeah? Well, we have to worry about them when they tell me to work on something else.”

  Brack lowered his hands.

  “That’s right. I was mocked and told to find some other story.”

  “Take a leave of absence. It’s not as if you need the money.”

  Her family owned one of the largest importing firms in Charleston. The way she used her funds to grease the wheels of information suggested that she already had some access to that wealth, whether in the form of a trust fund or straight-up allowance. He didn’t know or care which.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “Meaning you won’t,” Brack countered.

  “No,” she said. “I promised Justin I’d give this place an honest try. I can’t renege on that.”

  It was hard for Brack to ignore the reference to the peckerwood, but he really tried. “You know what all this means, don’t you?”

  A glimmer of a smile crept across Darcy’s face. “It means we’re onto something.”

  Vito’s tentacles may reach all the way up to the thirtieth floor of her employer’s building.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Wednesday, three p.m.

  Regan traced a finger up Vito’s bare stomach. He lay with his eyes closed in what she hoped was post-coital bliss, his head propped on a pillow. “I was thinking something.”

  He opened his eyes, looked at her, and smiled.

  At that she knew he was hers to do with as she pleased. Making her voice low and husky, she said, “You heard what happened with Mindy and Kai, right?”

  He nodded.

  “If it’s my sister causing all this trouble, why doesn’t something happen to her?”

  “You want me to take out your sister?”

  “Don’t you see?” she purred. “It’s the only way we can live happily ever after.”

  Vito waited a beat as if thinking about it. He said, “If she gets killed, you will be the prime suspect.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Why not just get her out of the way so we can get back to business as usual?”

  “It’s this Brack Pelton,” he said. “He has a bad habit of turning up where he doesn’t belong.”

  “So take him out.” She slid her hands around Vito’s waist and kissed him. “You can do it, baby. Do it for me.”

  “I already have a plan for him,” he said. “Soon enough he’ll get his due.”

  Chapter Twenty

  With Mutt at work and he and Darcy with no new leads, Brack took it easy in his room after a late lunch in the hotel coffee shop. Alone. Trish had taken her baby-sitting role a little too far, almost approaching dognapping. He’d expected her to keep the room he’d reserved for her at the pet-friendly hotel. Instead, she’d elected to escort Shelby fifty miles outside the city for a vacation in the mountains. Taking his dog with him to entertain Taliah yesterday must have prompted Trish to make Shelby less available, as if Brack had absconded with his own dog. He kept telling himself that at least Shelby was safe.

  As he was about to fall asleep on his hotel bed, he got a call from Paige.

  “When we decided to open the second location,” she reminded, “you agreed to free me up to handle it. We didn’t talk about my having to manage the construction of the new place and still pick up your slack at the Pirate’s Cove.”

  “What happened and why am I just now getting a call?”

  “Our new manager apparently got mad about something and walked off the job.”

  “She what?”

  “You heard me.”

  Paige rarely presented a problem she didn’t already have a solution to. She was that good. Therefore, he was sure she was toying with him. At least he hoped so.

  He said, “What would you like to do?”

  “I’d like to put Maura in charge.”

  Maura was their assistant manager.

  “Isn’t she already in charge?” Brack asked.

  “Let’s make it official.”

  He said, “Do it.”

  “Thanks, boss,” she said. “How’re things going in Atlanta?”

  “Not very well.”

  “Remember that I’m in your will. If something happens, I get just about everything.”

  “How could I forget?”

  “Good,” she said. “I’d rather have you alive so I can bust your chops. But if you get stupid and die, I’ll gladly take the business we’ve built.” She hung up.

  Paige had become a little tougher over the few years he’d known her, probably because he’d gotten into some very dangerous situations that he almost didn’t make it out of. She was right about the business, which ran a very handsome surplus these days—hence, the new Porsche he used to have. The rest of his assets—what Paige was not slated to inherit—would go to Brother Thomas’s Church of Redemption in Charleston as well as a few animal protection charities.

  Instead of dwelling on the aftermath of his demise, he turned his attention to the task at hand. He really wasn’t in Atlanta for Cassie. Or Regan. He’d like to say he was here to help Mutt, who’d always been there to help him. But if he was being honest with himself, which he sometimes neglected to be, Brack would admit he was here for Darcy.

  His phone rang again. It was Darcy, as if she could read his mind.

  “Howdy,” he said.

  “Howdy? This isn’t Texas, pardner.”

 
Not wanting to admit how much he’d missed hearing her voice the past year, sarcastic or not, he affected a slightly annoyed attitude. “What can I do for you now?”

  “You can check out a few things for me.”

  “You want moi to check out a few things pour vous?”

  “Easy there, Pepe Le Pew,” she said. “It’s three thirty already, and I’m filming in about five minutes so I’ve got to be quick. I’m emailing a list of addresses for you and Mutt to run down.”

  “Vito owns them, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes. I’ll call you when I’m done here.” She hung up.

  At least she was calling. Brack wondered what her peckerwood fiancé thought about him being here, working with her again. Not that it mattered. Too soon she would become his wife and Brack would be back in Charleston.

  He got in his Mazda turbo and drove to get Mutt, hoping Cassie wouldn’t object to their new assignment. And that Mutt wouldn’t say anything stupid, like “I don’t gotta tell you where I’m goin’, woman.” That would be bad.

  Brack pulled into the parking lot at Cassie’s restaurant, Barry White’s “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love” blaring through the hatchback’s speakers. Because it was early, the front lot was almost empty—except for a black Ford Expedition with darkened windows. As he passed by, its driver started the engine, and when Brack parked at the far end, the SUV drove away. The small voice in the back of his head said to follow. Ordinarily he listened when that voice spoke. As for listening when common sense and logic whispered, not so much.

  The Expedition turned onto the main thoroughfare and Brack gave chase, partly to test the incognito tailing ability of his Mazda. If the Ford’s presence turned out to be nothing, the driver wouldn’t be looking for a tail. If the person or persons in the SUV were up to no good, this was about to get interesting, especially since no one driving that SUV could outrun the Mazda.

  Brack stayed five cars back in the center lane, ready to follow no matter which way it turned. The first mile or two was smooth sailing. The driver made lazy turns, using his indicator well in advance.

  But Brack’s luck ran out when, on a backed-up left turn, everyone in between them kept going straight and he ended up directly behind the Expedition. When the green arrow flashed the first cars in front of the SUV moved ahead, the Expedition easing from a full stop a few feet ahead of him, then making a wild U-turn at the last moment. It passed him on his left heading in the opposite direction.